Thus the often-fact-challenged Ann Althouse says that she wants to acquire the JournoList archives to complete an ‘academic study’ (sorry: what’s the UW Law School’s interest in JournoList?) and lesser conservative bloggers start fundraising to help her buy them.

Fact-challenged? Me? That's funny coming in a sentence with the words "academic study" in quotes. The words don't appear at the link — not by me or anyone else. Roston apparently just threw that in as if it might bolster some implicit half-baked argument that the University of Law School has to have an "interest" in anything I might choose to write.

AND: Roston has added:

Correction: Ann’s right – it was the blogger who linked to her, and not Althouse herself who said that the study she wanted to do was ‘academic.’ She’s absolutely right in the first instance, there’d be nothing ‘academic’ about the ’study’ she contemplated. I apologize for even hinting that her partisan exercise had any academic intentions. And while I may have messed that up, at least I don’t fall for hoaxes like this one.

Now, Roston has me saying that there is nothing that would be academic about the book I would write. Of course, I never said that either. He seems to find it very difficult to speak without making things up. If you read my original post, you can see that I offered to analyze the material in an intellectual way and indicated what my approach the material would be. I said I was interested in "human nature and how social and political systems work" and so forth. Roston lurches from one misstatement to the next. He accuses me of wanting to do a "partisan exercise" perhaps because it's the only thing he knows how to do.

...if enticing someone with a bribe to release their copy of the archive is quite different than, say, getting it through the non-existent discovery of a hypothetical lawsuit that is not being threatened?

But I'm not a lawyer, so maybe there is no legal difference between seeking information for the public interest, seeking it for self-defense against recent charges of anti-semitism, and seeking it for shits and giggles with cash in hand.

What's annoying is that the blogosphere, like most of life in general, is so INTENT on personalizing everything. Nobody can say "hey, posting the journolist archives would be a great thing, let's take up a collection to offer a reward for it." No, it's got to be tied to some particular person. Let's buy it for Althouse, rather than let's buy it because it ought to be public.

I disagree with the notion of making these lists public. I think that partisan journalism has a long, long tradition in this country and should be defended.

When I was growing up, my dad worked for the newspaper in Madison. At the time there were were two thriving opinions represented by the Capital Times and The Wisconsin State Journal. He always brought home copies of both and I asked him once why he did that."So I can get both sides of the story" was his reply.

I deplore the move underfoot to make modern journalism "fair and balanced" because it's really just a ploy to shut one or both sides down and to once again control the narrative as was in effect done with TV news casts in the recent past before the days of Fox News etc.

If the lefties like Ezra Klein (and I'm no fan) get outed and shouted down, the same forces (or their counterparts) will come next for the conservative side.

I'm all in favor of partisan journalism. I'm just not in favor of journalists who are unconcerned about being co-opted by their sources.

Greg Sargent at the WaPo thinks it's just wonderful that Ezra Klein has such ready access to policymakers in the health care debate. But that access was gained as Klein honed his skills as a policy pimp. Who knows what kind of quid pro quos he's been trading with them over time? That doesn't make him a good reporter, it makes him a corrupt reporter.

Journalism can be practiced as a profession. Outing the members of the Journolist would remind the journalists on the list where their loyalties ought to be placed.

I agree with you re truth in advertising is best. Why won't libs in the MSM admit they are libs? Christ they are even afraid to use the word liberal so they changed it to progressive.

AJ: Same reason that the NYT won't admit that they're leftwings. Truth is, we need both the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal just to keep things honest. Celebrate journalist diversity.

The MSM has an interest in perpetuating the myth that they are fair and balanced. The real threat are people who say we need everybody to be fair and balanced. It is incumbent upon the news consumer to read the facts from all sides and become more fair and balanced.

None of those people are reporters dumb ass. They are just entertainers or opinion writers. They don't report. The problem is not that people have opinions. It is that those on the right are called what they are "comentators" and those are the left get to mascaurade as "reporters". If Ann Coulter were a leftist, she would be working for WAPO or the NYT covering the Whitehouse.

The whole idiotic Fairness Doctrine was probably a well-intentioned response to media markets which were consolidating, like newspapers and to some extent radio and broadcast TV. But after the advent of cable TV and satelite radio and especially the internet, there really is no reason to take it seriously, is there?

So long as outright lies and distortions can be pointed out and ridiculed, let them happen.

El Pollo, I agree with you to the extent that unbiased is unpossible and we would be better off if journalists were simply honest about their biases (a la just about everyone in Jeremy's "righties who suck" list). But I see this whole brouhaha as being not about bias, but about honesty.

Probably the bulk of the 400 journalists are harmless either because they are more or less professional or because they are nobodies. But enough to matter have a large readership and are fundamentally dishonest with that readership, consciously putting a leftist spin on news that is sold as straight reporting.

Weigel being only the (now) most famous example of someone who used the Journolist to advance a hidden agenda in favor of the Democratic party.

The public has a right to know about not just the ones who get sandbagged by their own listers, but about all of them.

rickie and scottie - i'm not here to become your friends. i already know all kinds of wing nuts who are impossible to have a real conversation with.

they're just like most of the usual commenters here every day; uninformed tea bagging fools who only post comments that shore up what they already believe to be so...oh, and of course, to denigrate their own president whenever possible.

there's literally NO disagreement or real discussion among the regulars, only a consistent regurgitation what what they hear via drudge, beck, hannity, limbaugh and the the rest of their heroes.

even the queen and her husband, needy, post exactly what they both think will keep the wing nuts happy.

You probably have other reasons for it too. But isn't your effort based on the idea that the Journolist archives contain evidence of liberal "journalists" acting in concert as an attacking mob, and therefore, when exposed to the public, will be politically damaging to the party of the left?

Right-leaning pundits are hoping that WeigelGate will be as explosive as they convinced themselves ‘Climategate’ was, and that they’ll be able to use the e-mails on the listserv to try all of the list’s members in a kanagroo-court of open-source investigation. Thus the often-fact-challenged Ann Althouse says that..

I think Lucky is Jeremy's attempt at trying to be clever and name his dog after Luckyoldson [which is the name Jeremy once used to comment here]. I doubt he even owns a dog. Even dogs would not be frends with Jeremy.

I disagree with the notion of making these lists public. I think that partisan journalism has a long, long tradition in this country and should be defended.

I have no problem with partisan journalism. I do have a problem with partisan journalism trying to dress itself up as objective. I really have a problem with journalists of any stripe conspiring to spin stories.

The new weapon that Ezra Klein put together is not partisan jounalism. Opinion pieces and editoro columns have been like bees buzzing in to sting one or two at a time a month. Klein displayed a new internet tool to coordination hundreds of bees diving for stings in a day or two so that they overwhelm a person's chance to defend themselves from a violent mob of slanderers. Then he used that as an intimidation tool to silence people. Klein deserves to be falling into the hole/trap he dug for others.

No, Jeremy, I don't have testicles so I can't be a teabagger. I don't play Halo or other games where I could be a virtual teabagger. If you're asking if I'm a tea party member, you should ask nicely instead of being insulting and (intentionally?) obtuse.

Try to be the person your dogs think you are. You'll have a better chance of being the person you describe on your profile.

Mary Beth - It's way more fun to screw with the local wing nuts. They only want to hear what they already believe, to whine about everything and anything related to president Obama, and of course, to suck up to each other and The Queen.

Anybody who shows up here and disagrees is immediately trashed as nothing more than a liberal troll.

I can think of very few here who really want part in a real discussion or debate, only the shoring up of their own beliefs and perceptions.

*Sorry, I forgot about guns. They do like to discuss various firearms.

revenant wrote: Question: how can you defend the tradition of partisan journalism while simultaneously covering up evidence of its existence?

If you mean that not being interested in what these people had to say amongst themselves as enabling a coverup, I don't see an issue unless some law was broken. I think that was Althouse's position- that she was personally offended by some of their partisan scribbles.

I'm just saying that I take the Journolitters at face value as being partisan and I'm not really put off by it.

I'm not interested in affecting their opinions any more than seeing them affect Drudge.